The Disintegration of Yugoslavia

Adapted from our textbook: WORLD HISTORY by Spielvogel
MAIN IDEA: Ethnic tensions led to armed conflict in Yugoslavia.


Yugoslavia had a Communist government but was never a Soviet satellite state. By 1990, however, the Communist Party collapsed. The Yugoslav political scene was complex. Slobodan Milosevic, leader of Serbia, rejected efforts toward independence. In Milosevic's view, the republics' borders first needed to be redrawn to form a new Greater Serbian state. When negotiations failed, Slovenia and Croatia declared their independence in June 1991. In September 1991, the Yugoslav army assaulted Croatia. Increasingly, Serbia, aided by Croation Serbs, dominated the Yugoslav army. Serbian forces captured one-third of Croatia's territory before a cease-fire ended the conflict.

Wars in Bosnia and Kosovo

The Serbs next attacked Bosnia-Herzegovina and acquired 70 percent of Bosnian territory. Many Bosnians were Muslims. The Serbs followed a policy called ethnic cleansing toward Bosnians-- killing or forcibly removing them from their lands. Ethnic cleansing revived memories of the Nazis and their horrors from World War II.

With support from NATO air attacks, Bosnian and Croation forces regained considerable territory lost to Serbian forces. The Serbs signed a formal peace treaty that split Bosnia into a Serb republic and a Muslim-Croat federation. In 2008, former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic was arrested for war crimes.

A new war erupted in 1998 over Kosovo, an autonomus (or self-governing) province within Yugoslavia. After Slobodan Milosevic stripped Kosovo of its autonomy in 1989, grousp of ethnic Albanians founded the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and began a campaign against Serbian rule. To crush the KLA, Serb fordces massacred ethnic Albanians. The United States and NATO allies worked on a settlement that would end the killing. The Albanians in Kosovo regained their autonomy in 1999. Milosevic's rule ended in 2000. While on trial for his role in the massacre of Kosovo civilians, Milosevic died in 2006.

Yugoslavia ceased to exist in 2004 when the government officially renamed the country Serbia and Montenegro. The people of Montenegro voted for independence in 2006. Thus, all six republics that formed Yugoslavia in 1918 were once again independent nations.

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